Camden council have been in consultation with their council house tenants over the introduction of a new government initiative aimed at handing over the management of council house stock to an external body.
The Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO) would receive a £283 million incentive from central government to bring Camden’s housing stock up to a ‘decent home standard’. In return they hand over the management but not the ownership of the houses to the ALMO.
Opponents of the scheme worry that it is privatisation through the back door and that the organisation would be forced to sell off houses when the money runs out, as they have in Westminster. In order for the deal to go ahead, the council had to get the approval of the
Deputy Prime Minister’s Office, which stipulated a number of criteria the council must fulfil before the system can change. These include consulting the tenants on key issues and ensuring that they “fully appreciate the implications” of the local authority’s ALMO proposals.
Camden tenants who opposed the scheme were backed by the ‘
Defend Council Housing’ movement. They applied for a Judicial Review of Camden Council’s failure to provide the tenants with the arguments against the ALMO scheme and the use of a ‘biased and unlawful’ ballot question. They were advised by Richard Stein, partner in the Human Rights Department of Leigh Day & Co.
The argument against Camden was that they have not enabled a balanced debate to take place, therefore preventing the tenants and leaseholders of making an informed choice.
The Honourable Mr Justice Munby ruled in the High Court on the 8th January, that the local authority was not obliged to ‘set out in its publicity materials the case against its proposals’. The judge also ruled that the ballot question was lawful.
During this legal battle, the council had continued with the ballot but had kept the ballot boxes sealed, pending the judges decision on it’s legality. After the application for a judicial review had failed, the council counted the votes and found that only 23 per cent of the vote supported the setting up of the ALMO. So although they had won the legal battle, they had in fact lost the fight. The tenants and leaseholders had voted unequivocally three to one (77%) against the ALMO.
Camden council is now left with the option of trying to secure funding from John Prescott’s office after he stated in the House of Commons that “We will try to provide adequate funding for those who want to stay with their local authorities.”
Richard Stein said: “The principle established by the judge in this case is most worrying in that they can ask tenants to make a choice without any obligation to ensure they understand both sides of the story.
“In this case, in practice, it did not matter because, as the judge found, the case against had been well canvassed by opponents of the ALMO. There are other cases where the implications might well be more worrying.”
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